Barack Obama: The making of a candidate

Follow the arc of Barack Obama's life, from his family's roots to his meteoric political rise -- all through rare interviews and exclusive photos and video. (Photo: At their home in Jakarta, Ann Dunham poses in this undated photo with her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, their daughter, Maya, and...

In the introduction to his 1995 memoir, "Dreams from My Father," U.S. Sen. Barack Obama noted that except for his family and several public figures, he had changed the names of most of the people in the book "for the sake of their privacy." More than a decade later, that privacy is rapidly evaporating...

When Barack Obama was a boy here, he studied for three years at a religious school and prayed four times a day. It was a Roman Catholic school. There, Obama was registered as student No. 203. "Yes, he prayed, because all the students here had to pray in the Catholic way--`in the name of the Father,...

Barack Obama's interest in political activism took root at Occidental College, a small liberal arts institution in this city's hilly Eagle Rock section. He was barely 18 when he arrived in 1979, a kid from Hawaii who still called himself Barry. Obama has portrayed most of his Occidental days as...

Sen. Barack Obama tapped everyone from small Internet donors to Hollywood stars and industry titans to raise a towering $25 million in the first three months of this year. The eye-catching total is a far cry from his first bid for elected office a dozen years ago, when Obama's earliest seed money...

Barack Obama has expressed pride in his ability to bring home old-fashioned pork. During his nearly eight years in Springfield, he tucked special earmarks into massive budget bills to shower small bequests on inner city schools, parks and youth service agencies. But some of the larger grants Obama...